Congress Calls March on Monday, Demands Gyanesh Kumar’s Exit

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 10th Oct: The Congress on Saturday announced a protest march in Delhi on Monday, October 12, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of irregularities in electoral rolls. The party called on INDIA bloc constituents and citizens concerned about electoral democracy to join the mobilisation.

Congress general secretary K. C. Venugopal said a delegation of senior party leaders would submit a memorandum to the Chief Justice of India, seeking judicial intervention in what the party described as a crisis over the electoral process.

“Gyanesh must go. There will be no backing down,” Venugopal said, reiterating the Congress’s demand for Kumar’s removal.

The controversy centres on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Opposition parties allege that the exercise has led to the deletion of millions of voters and have questioned the decision-making process within the poll body. The Election Commission has maintained that its decisions over the past year were unanimous, describing differences of opinion during deliberations as normal.

Mamata Banerjee to Join Monday’s March
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to participate in Monday’s march, according to the announcement. Her planned participation follows her detention by Delhi Police during Saturday’s protests against Kumar and the SIR exercise.

Banerjee criticised the police action, saying protesters had been treated like criminals and describing her experience of being transported around without knowing their destination as akin to kidnapping. She also called the situation a “Super Emergency”.

Banerjee told PTI that she had cancelled her flight to Kolkata after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi requested her to remain in Delhi, signalling renewed coordination between the two leaders amid the opposition campaign.

Her nephew, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, is also expected to travel to Delhi on Monday. The participation of other opposition parties and leaders in the proposed march remains to be confirmed.

Opposition Leaders Detained During Saturday’s Protests
Saturday’s protest at Jantar Mantar, organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and supported by opposition figures, was met with a major police deployment and preventive detentions. The demonstrators demanded Kumar’s resignation and opposed the SIR exercise.

Among those detained were former chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal, Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar, along with Left leaders M. A. Baby, Brinda Karat and Dipankar Bhattacharya, activist Yogendra Yadav and lawyer Prashant Bhushan. AAP leaders Saurabh Bharadwaj, Kuldeep Kumar and Anurag Dhanda were also detained and subsequently released.

Vijayan criticised the police action in a post on X, accusing authorities of detaining elected representatives to silence the Opposition. Banerjee also condemned the detentions and restrictions imposed during the protest.

INDIA Bloc Raises Issue Before President
On Friday, a delegation of INDIA bloc leaders met President Droupadi Murmu and raised concerns over alleged voter deletions, demanding Kumar’s resignation.

The delegation included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, RJD MP Manoj Jha and CPI(M) general secretary M. A. Baby, among others.

The Opposition’s campaign has intensified following a media report alleging that the other two Election Commissioners had not been informed about certain decisions relating to the SIR exercise and had recorded objections to some decisions. The Election Commission rejected claims of unilateral decision-making, maintaining that its decisions over the past year were unanimous.

The Congress’s proposed march on Monday is expected to test the extent of coordination among INDIA bloc parties as they press for accountability in the electoral-roll revision process.